Seeing What's Not There
by GABGM
Summary: Alice Cooper was always so worried about her daughter's relationship with Archie Andrews that she never saw what was really happening but Fred Andrews didn't make that same mistakes. Basically Alice is so focused on Archie that she doesn't see what's growing between Betty and Jughead but Fred does. Quick one-shot. (rated T for a non explicit very awkward conversation)


**This is my first Riverdale fic so bear with me please. Clearly, I don't own Riverdale or any of its characters… if I did it would basically be the bughead show.**

Fred remembers it as if it were yesterday, the first day Alice Cooper told him that she though Archie was a bad influence on her daughter. It was a warm July night when an eight-year-old Archie begged his parents to let Betty and jughead spend the night camping out in the back yard and Fred, being unable to deny his son much, was all too happy to set up the tent for them. He instructed the boys to share a sleeping bag and let Betty have the other one and went to bed. The next day Alice called furious because Betty had apparently come home with lice, Fred tried to calm her down, lice were after all a pretty normal part of childhood, and went to inform Mary of the problem. They had been searching Archie's head for almost an hour with no success when out of the corner of his eye, Fred saw Jughead scratch his scalp and things started to make sense. He pulled the young boy into the dining room.

"Jug, I'm not angry ok but did you share sleeping bag with betty last night?" The young boy shifted uncomfortably and started looking at his shoes. "It's ok Jug"

"It's just" he stammered "Archie fell asleep and Betty was scared, so I got in her sack so I could protect her"

"You did the right thing Jug, we should always help our friends when they need it"

"Okay Mr. Andrews" in that moment, with Jughead smiling brighter than he had ever seen, Fred Andrews realized that Alice Cooper was worried about the wrong boy stealing her daughter's heart.

He ran into a similar situation at Archie's twelfth birthday. Things had changed a lot in the last couple of years, Archie had gotten into sports, Betty had started looking at him differently and Jughead had started looking at Betty the same way she did at Archie. The living room was full of tweens awkwardly looking at each other as music played in the background clearly too embarrassed to ask anyone to dance. Archie grabbed Betty's hand and pulled her onto the dance floor in an attempt to get the others to join along. Slowly but surely the all the kids began to move to the dance floor, all but one. Fred saw Jughead sulk out of the room and followed him to the front porch.

"Give it time Jughead" he said as he sat down next to the young boy "she'll get over it soon"

"What?" he asked surprised "Who?"

"Betty will get over her crush on Archie soon enough"

"What if they start liking each other and they leave me out?" he asked as he pulled on his sleeves.

"That won't happen, they're your best friends, that's not going to change"

"I don't know…"

"Is that really what scares you or are you upset that Betty isn't dancing with you?

"What?" he scoffed "Of course not"

"It's okay, we all-"

"Are you ok?" Jughead shot up as he saw an upset Betty walk onto the porch.

"Yeah it's fine" she wiped a tear away.

"Why don't I give you guys some privacy" he said as he walked into the hall.

"Archie is dancing with Josie now, he doesn't want to dance with me" he heard Betty say from the other side of the door.

"Archie is stupid, who wouldn't want to dance with you, you're perfect"

Of course, the next day he got a call from Alice who had somehow gotten wind that Betty and Archie had been dancing. He didn't even mind listening to her go on and on about proper chaperoning because the only thing he could think of was how betty hadn't let go of Jughead's hand for the rest of the party and how oblivious Alice Cooper really was.

He meant what he had said to Jughead, he really did think that Betty would eventually get over the fantasy in her head and see what was really in front of her. Unfortunately, at age sixteen that hadn't happened yet. Jughead on the other hand did seem to be over his crush on Betty, at least that's what Fred thought until he saw an unmistakable mop of black hair climb up a ladder to the youngest Cooper's bedroom. He couldn't help but smirk as he got ready for the variety show, thinking that Alice was probably too worried about Betty seeing Archie later that night to see what was so obvious.

After Jughead moved in, Fred had been so preoccupied making sure he was ok that he had forgotten all about his son's other best friend. That was until a week after when he started to realize that his ladder wasn't where it was supposed to be and he decided that the right thing to do would be to intervene given that he was Jughead's pseudo parent. So, one day while Archie was at practice, he cornered his surrogate son while eating cereal in the kitchen.

"Hey Mr. Andrews"

"Jughead I need to talk to you"

"What about?" he raised a brow.

"It's just when you moved in, we never really talked about the house rules…" he scratched the back of his head.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No! No!" he assured him quickly "It's just you and Betty…"

"Oh, if I knew I was going to have this conversation I would have stayed homeless"

"No girls upstairs with the door closed, no girls when I'm not home"

"Got it" he smiled "but it's not girls, it's just Betty"

"That's good to hear… so I'm assuming your dad has talked to you about you know… being safe"

"Oh My God!" Jughead jumped of his stool "We are so not doing this"

"Jughead I just want to make sure you're being careful, the same thing I would do if Archie had a girlfriend"

"Ok, please stop! It's not… we're not…"

"Ok that's good to know but here" he handed him over a brown paper bag "Just in case"

"I am so leaving right now" Jughead's face turned bright red as he looked inside the bag "please lets never talk about this ever again". As it were Betty stayed over for dinner that night and after take out from pop's (because who was he kidding he couldn't cook) Betty, Archie and Jughead sat in the living room watching some series on Netflix. When Betty left the house, he tried to say goodbye but she could barely look him in the face so he assumed Jughead had probably told her all about their earlier interaction. Of course, Alice turned up at his house two minutes after ranting about how he could possibly let their kids be up this late.

"Your son has been a bad influence since the day you moved in" she went on and on "I knew he would be the down-"

"Alice" he finally cut her off "you spend so much time worrying about Archie, you know I do have another teenage boy in the house and don't you think Betty's been coming over more often since he's been here"

"Oh my God, I have to go… BETTY!" so that was how Alice cooper found out about her daughter's budding relationship. Sure, Fred felt guilty about ruining Jughead and Betty's little bubble but hey he'd kept Alice in the blind for long enough.

**Whether you liked it or you think it sucked, please leave a review.**


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